Sixth Form Education

Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when he plans to implement changes to the presumption in favour of school sixth forms, as set out in paragraph 4.21 of the Raising Expectations White Paper; and if he will make a statement.

Jim Knight: We are beginning a six week consultation on changes to the Decision Makers' guidance that covers sixth form presumptions on 11 December and, subject to comments received by the deadline of 22 January 2009, we expect to be able to implement the changes in February 2009.
	We remain committed to the principle of expanding successful and popular schools and colleges, including enabling them to establish new 16-19 provision. Collaboration between schools, and between schools and colleges, will be essential to ensure that we have a high quality offer for all young people and to support the successful delivery of diplomas and of the wider 14-19 reforms.

Social Services: Training

Paul Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much his Department has allocated for the training of  (a) youth workers and  (b) social service practitioners to enable early identification of young people at risk in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.

Beverley Hughes: Since April 2008 DCSF has allocated a Children's Social Care Workforce Grant of £18.156 million for each of the three years (2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11) to the Area Based Grant(1) for the children's social care work force (including social workers), to support work force training and development.
	The Children's Social Care Workforce Grant was formerly allocated by the Department of Health (DH) in two portions (along with the Adults Social Care Workforce Grant) as part of the Social Services National Training Strategy and Human Resources Development Strategy grants to support social care work force development in the adult and children's sector. Funding from DH in past years for these grants totalled:
	
		
			  £ million 
			   2003-04  2004-05  2005-06  2006-07  2007-08 
			 National Training Strategy Grant 24.884 30.979 94.859 107.859 107.859 
			 Human Resources Development Strategy Grant 9.525 23.9 62.75 49.75 49.75 
		
	
	In 2008-09 DCSF also allocated £12.455 million to the Children's Workforce Development Council to improve the capacity, skills and supply of social workers in children's services, working closely with partners such as the General Social Care Council and those supporting improvements in adult social work, including Skills for Care.
	The Government do not collect data on the training of youth workers. From 2006-07 to 2008-09 the Government have invested £15 million to support local authorities in implementing reforms to targeted youth support services so that interventions are made earlier for vulnerable young people, to help prevent poor outcomes.
	(1) The ABG is administered by the Department for Communities and Local Government; it is a non-ringfenced grant which gives local authorities the flexibility to determine locally how best to spend the resource in order to deliver local, regional and national priorities in their areas.

Teachers: Sick Leave

Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many days of sick leave were taken by teachers in maintained schools in the last year, broken down by type of illness.

Jim Knight: Figures for the number of full-time and part-time teacher sickness absences in local authority maintained schools in England, calendar years 2000 to 2007 are published in table 13 of the School Workforce Statistical First Release, January 2008 (Revised) at the following web link:
	http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000813/SFR262008 tables.xls
	Information on the type of illness is not collected centrally.

Departmental Pay

Michael Ancram: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what bonuses were paid by his Department in 2007-08; to which members of staff; and for what purposes.

Si�n Simon: Non-consolidated bonuses paid in the Department were paid to 51 per cent. of staff in 2007-08. Bonuses are judged on delivery of agreed objectives and behaviours.